NEWS

‘Most of city’s medical waste ends up in landfills’

Going by the indication of
Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) pilot project to pick up
medical waste, a significant part of the pharmaceuticals that remain unsold in
the city end up in our landfills and garbage heaps. In just three months, the
private agency that undertook the work of door-to-door collection of expired
medical waste, collected over 10 tonnes of expired tablets, capsules, syrups
and syringes from pharmacies across the State.

Lack of responsibility

This is however just the tip of
the iceberg, considering that only 450 of the nearly 13,000 medical shops have
enrolled in this first-of-its-kind project here. “We have approached around
6,000 shops. However, only 10 per cent have enrolled. A variety of excuses were
made, but the reality is that many think it is not mandatory for them to
discard the waste carefully and in a scientific manner,” says Shashi Mohan, MD
and CEO of Satva Health Solutions Pvt. Ltd., the agency authorised by the KSPCB
to collect and dispose discarded medicines.